01.08.03 - 3:48 p.m.

One thing I love about SF is that there are always new places to explore. Even though it's tiny compared to NYC or London, I'm still constantly discovering new things.

Last night I was walking home from BART, and instead of turning at 26th and heading home, I kept going on Mission. I don't know why I'd never gone that way before, because there's lots to see. Dingy Latin bars filled with scary Mexican dudes playing intense games of pool. Hole in the wall restaurants like Emmy's Spaghetti Shack and Jasmine Tea House, plus the intriguing Rock Soup (housed in a former bank building) and El Rio (where D's lady-killer friend plays with his band). Boxing gym filled with lycra-clad fitness enthusiasts laying into punching bags.

I ended up at the Odeon, a bar run by Burning Man junkies. The bartender was a crazy bearded dude named Flash. He made me a mulled rum and declaimed grandly on the state of the world. Flash turned out to be an artist-in-residence at Sunset Scavenger, the same junkyard that Nate and Hannah told me about long ago.

8 million stories in the naked city